“On account of its boldness your commentary will certainly arouse serious objections with the larger number of exegetes, themselves overbold in exegesis, but weak in criticism. As for me, you know that I am not affrighted by boldness in criticism when coupled with knowledge of the language and the subject-matter, with acumen, and, above all, with sound common sense. Doubtless, I shall not be able to agree with you in every case in which, overconfident perhaps, you may believe that you have hit upon the correct solution of a difficulty. That, however, does not prevent me from recognizing that your book, by reason of its abundance of excellent emendations, is a valuable addition to exegetical literature.” Graetz undoubtedly hit upon many a happy guess, and applause was not lacking, but in general his results met with opposition so decided that we may surely expect a later generation to review the judgment of our time and separate the chaff from the wheat. Not in the least intimidated by the adverse criticism upon his exegetical methods, he was resolved to remove the difficulties attaching to the Old Testament language by all the means at his command. He thought himself justified in his confidence in himself in matters of textual criticism, upon which chiefly he concentrated his explanations in the course of time. He grew more and more unrestrained in his efforts to restore approximately the original text of the Bible by means of audacious conjectures, which his sympathetic mind was never weary of devising. In other fields he was always careful to keep in connection and in touch with tradition; destructive tendencies were not at all characteristic of him. But in his textual criticism he permitted his zeal to run away with him, until he lost the solid ground of the Bible text and of reality from under his feet. His acumen displayed and dissipated itself chiefly in the blinding pyrotechnics of rocket-like emendations. Of this character are his exegetical studies on the prophet Jeremiah,[71] on the Proverbs of Solomon,[72] and his fine essay on Bible exegesis.[73]